


Far Enough

by Overthinkerwrites



Category: Ava's Demon
Genre: AU, Ending Fic, F/F, better ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-08-14 04:48:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7999141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Overthinkerwrites/pseuds/Overthinkerwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ava has finally found Maggie, years after she has failed her pact.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Far Enough

It had taken years to find her.

 

Maggie had failed her pact.

 

Ava and the rest of the hosts should have seen it coming. When Gil had gently turned down Maggie’s advances, even with the magic of the Rose of the Unrequited, and to say it devastated her was an understatement.

 

Ava had tried to support her when it happened. Even when she and the rest of the hosts were on the run from TiTan, Ava would not give up mending the bridge between them.

 

It was when they heard the screaming from Maggie’s room, did she and the rest of the hosts realize that something was terrible wrong. When Ava attempted to open the door, it was violently thrown aside and something with Maggie’s voice, but something much larger, charged out and sped down the hall faster than the rest of them could see the shadow leave.

 

Before any of them could give chase, Maggie had pierced through the bulkhead of the Arrows’ ship and while the emergency doors sealed the hole, everyone had to process the fact that Magnolia Lacivi had somehow been able to escape the ship, intentionally escaping into the vacuum of space without a ship herself.

 

But how?

 

Their question was answered in part when they saw the rose.

 

Instead of the vibrant and lively blue, it had wilted and all that remained was a garbled mishmash of color and intent. It was then Ava realized what Wrathia had meant when she had said a ‘monster of failure’.

 

She wanted to search for Maggie. However, the flotilla of Titan’s finest practically breathing down their necks prevented them doing so.

 

And so the war continued.

 

They had fermented rebellion. They had exposed Titan’s falsehoods and the horrors he committed upon his faithful in the name of going to 'Paradise.”

 

They had emerged victorious. However, without Maggie, Ava felt the victory was noticeably hollow. She was as affected by Titan’s reign as Ava was. She needed to see this.

 

She had enlisted the information network of the anti-Titan resistance that had existed before to find her, even though there was a good chance she would not remain as she was in life.

 

However, to her surprise, they found her. Ava had prepared herself for the worst, but never expected to see Maggie reduced to this.

 

Maggie/Tuls had become a sad pile of leaves, roots, and bark.

 

She couldn’t even move. She was stuck and even if she wanted to move, she seemed too despondent to even want to move.

 

Maggie looked up to her for a moment. Her face was blue. So very blue and withered. Ava, as a contrast, appeared royal, dignified, and full of life.

 

Maggie then turned away, slowly. Ava could almost hear the sob under her breath.

 

“…unloved…”

 

Ava wanted so desperately to rush forward and tell Maggie she was wrong. Yet, she had to proceed carefully. Anyone in a state of Monster of Failure were simple, but unstable, mentally.

 

Ava closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She had to reach Maggie.

 

'No,” she answered.

 

The thing that was Maggie turned back to her, the distorted visage of her friend no doubt taking issue with her proclamation.

 

“Unloved,” Maggie repeated, her voice a warble and weak.

 

“No.” Ava answered again, opening her eyes as she took a step forward.

 

Maggie drew into herself defensively and Ava froze. She forced herself to relax and took another deep breath.

 

“Loved. Always,” Ava took the initiative this time. She had a feeling she was risking more than just her physical safety, but she had to continue regardless.

 

She could see Maggie’s eyes through the chaos and distortion of her face widen for a moment before looking down.

 

“Never,” she answered sadly, almost to the point of weeping again.

 

“Always,” Ava insisted as she held out her hands, palms upward to show she was no threat. She then knelt on the ground, soft with grass in a dense forest on an uncolonized world at the edge of known space.

 

“Loved?” Maggie recited, almost sounding like Ava for a moment, as if she had to copy what she heard to play it back to her.

 

Ava nodded. “Loved.”

 

The eyes of the thing that was Maggie began to water as two of the many arms it now had shut them closed.

 

“No,” it cried, “No!”

 

She tried to escape, but the roots were too deep. And when the Monster of Failure realized she could not even move, the weeping returned in force.

 

It was then Ava reached into her robes and pulled out a small vial. The liquid was green and inside it, a single thorn floated. Wrathia had informed her that it was capable of unleashing the power within them all, as evidenced by the other Hosts capable of destroying Titan’s armies, but there was also a chance that it could restore one from the state of Failure Maggie was currently in.

 

It was a long shot, but Ava wanted to risk taking it rather than letting Maggie exist like this forever.

 

“Yours,” Ava whispered as the weeping slowly faded when Maggie looked to her.

 

Maggie looked at her a long time, then to the vial. There was nothing Ava could say and she had to wait for Maggie to act.

 

Slowly, Maggie out stretched a gnarled hand made of bark and roots and gently took the vial.

 

Ava sat back and watched, hoped, prayed, that she would ingest it.

 

Time passed as the sun slowly set as Maggie still stared at the vial.

 

Ava’s patience faultered for a moment, when she whispered, “Please?”

 

It was then Maggie looked back to her and then the vial once more. Before her astonished eyes, Maggie opened her maw, it almost frightened Ava to see the jaw unlatch and grow large enough to consume her, and dropped the vial in.

 

She could hear the vial break and the liquid, no doubt, spreading through Maggie’s system.

 

Maggie gasped as her innards began to liquefy and Ava gasped with her, believing she had now consigned her friend to her doom.

 

Violent twitching, audible rumbling, and inhuman screaming accompanied the transformation as all signs of Maggie slowly melded into the mesh of foliage.

 

“Oh no,” Ava whispered, fearing the worst as she got to her feet.

 

In the center of the creature’s form, Ava then heard something moving within. Desperately, she brandished the talons that had spilled more blood than she would care to admit and clawed her way through the now inert shell that was the Failure state.

 

With hope beyond hope, she dug deeper and deeper until she found a shell that her claws could not cut into. At the very core of the monster, she started to sweep away everything until she unearthed what appeared to be a giant seed, almost her size.

 

Ava paced around it for what felt like hours. She wasn’t sure what to make of it and what little she could get out of Renunculae about their species was not entirely helpful.

 

Once again, she was caught off guard when the top of the seed started to crack and bend. She hopped back and saw a humanlike figure emerge with great force.

 

Maggie emerged at the tip of a sprout that reached up to the sky, but then faltered and teetered over. Without thinking, Ava dashed and caught Maggie as she was about to land. Maggie’s skin was a vibrant green, her hair was a collection of the smoothest leaves she had ever seen and despite the ichor covering her body, she was just as humanoid as she was before.

 

“Maggie?!” Ava was not entirely sure if this was Maggie or not, but if the vial worked…

 

Maggie coughed violently as she held her hands to her face to cover her mouth as a robe of bark with designs as ornate as the ones Ava now wore literally grew out of her skin. When the coughing subsided, Maggie wiped her eyes clear and blinked several times as though she hadn’t used them in a long time.

 

“A-Ava?” she croaked, her voice equally unused and weak at the moment.

 

“Yes. Are you ok?” she asked, equal parts excited and scared.

 

“I… I remember the rose dying and the pact… Tuls’ and my pact… it failed and then… I was here,” she struggled for breath.

 

Ava only held her close as Maggie struggled to regain her strength.

 

“You… Ava… you brought me back,” Maggie asked, part relieved, part incredulous.

 

“How?” an awkward pause, “why did you bring me back?” she asked, still trying to comprehend the situation she was in.

 

Ava leaned back and smiled, slightly embarrassed. “I couldn’t leave you.”

 

Maggie, despite her weariness, was flustered at the answer. “After all that happened?”

 

Ava nodded in response. “Yeah.” She wanted to say so much more, but perhaps, that was enough for now.

 

Maggie sniffed once, then let her arms curl around Ava’s torso. With her head on Ava’s shoulder, she whispered, “Thank you.”

 

Ava smiled and embraced Maggie back.

 

Yes. That was all she needed to say.


End file.
